From the book "The Millionaires Next Door" - I wrote this for an investment class a few years back and stumbled across it. Make your own contributions!
Millionaires (or Rich Folk) I have known and their cars.... Ray G,
1 x 25 yo Volvo and a 20 yo Merc.
Worked through lunches (never ate) to keep calories off and save money. Never entertained business clients. Light drinker, none smoker, happy marriage (key to success IME). His only extravagance is his Motorcycle collection.
Started Unidata – I was fortunate to have him as a mentor but he didn’t pass on much investment advice… but he’s not a fan of the stock market at heart.
He’s not a miser but extremely cautious. Retired at 55 and now spends time travelling the world learning French and researching mediaeval paint types (he has a paint chip collection that has to be seen to be believed).
I know a former millionaires!
D D. A spender who couldn’t keep his hands off the check book. He had $16 MM GBP in the bank at one point and his financial adviser told him “lock it up, you can’t trust yourself” and of course he didn’t . HE now lives off his wife’s income I think and has to drive an older car.
The richest person I know personally owns the “Escalator Handle Company” – they make escalator handles for 80% of the world market. He’s remarried a Chinese gold digger who will clean him out eventually. He catches taxis.
Three brothers from school own 50% of an aircraft charter company . They proved 1+1+1 = 5. The youngest is the CEO, the eldest is the chief mechanic and they made the middle one learn to fly. Rare to see this sort of structure work tho IME. Not really into cars.
However, one of the happiest and most content people I know is Kevin Martin, he’s a missionary in West Papua and will probably die in the village eventually with the people he works with, he had a super supportive wife. One of the important points of wealth to me is to be generous with it. I think he has a motorbike.
Investment is not the path to happiness but a path to a goal that might aid in happiness.
A surprising number of millionaires in Singapore are not the flashy business people the government here loves but the old school careful investors and business people in the non sexy businesses. The richest Singaporean I know is KK Kuah – he owns Metalok – all they do is refit engines and prop shafts for big ships in a filthy shipyard. I don’t think he owns a car (I think he’s leases a car w driver).
Some notes I put together for an investment class.
